Terry Guyer was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1976, he moved to San Francisco, California and now has his home and studio just a short distance south of San Francisco, in the stimulating creative environment of Silicon Valley.

Terry is a member of the Portrait Society of America, the California Art Club, The National Sculpture Society, and on the board of directors for the Artist's Guild of San Francisco. He received his BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, which included a year at Brighton Polytechnic, Sussex England. Terry is an award-winning painter and sculptor with artwork in many international, private, corporate and public collections.

What Terry has to say about his work:

I work successive layers of translucent and opaque oil paint to the point that the sense of paint application gives the painting a life of its own. I paint realism because it gives purpose and structure to the visual sensation of color and value being created. The impression created by the paint handling gives context to the realistic imagery and together it builds a more complete and satisfying visual experience.

Paint effects are complicated and enhanced with successive layers of oil color applied after a previous session's paint has dried. I apply paint in translucent veils of color and then paint into that with other translucent or opaque applications of color which, when combined – the wet color and areas of dried color, only partially covered – create colors and sensations of luminosity that transcend ordinary pigment awareness and lead the mind back to the representation of the subject – temporarily suspending the impression that one is looking at paint on linen – and gives way to the impression one is looking at a new reality.